Dave Arnold reminisces over faded black and white photographs that capture the generations of memories made at his family’s farm in southern Ohio. His grandfather built the 500-acre farm in 1939 with a lake that would become the centerpiece for family bonding experiences.
“My grandmother said he stood here where we're sitting right now and said, ‘I see it, I'm going to build a lake where these two creeks come together. It'll be great fishing and swimming, and the kids can be here, and the families can do Thanksgiving.’ He had that vision,” said Dave Arnold, a career outdoors professional who developed his love for nature during a lifetime of visiting the farm.
The lake became a reality by replacing creeks on the property. It was the most beloved spot for the children and grandchildren to spend their summer days swimming and fishing.
“I have pictures of myself fishing on this lake at three years old,” Arnold said. “I would come here on weekends, and we would fish and catch frogs and snapping turtles. It was our playground.”
Arnold’s grandfather, ‘Gramps’ as he calls him, built the farm with a vision to create an outdoor recreation space for his family, and little has changed in 85 years.
The 22-acre lake Arnold’s grandfather built on his farm in southern Ohio in 1939. (Photo: Water & Land Solutions)
But, Arnold says that his Gramps understood something else about the 22-acre lake he created—he knew at some point the dam and spillway would deteriorate.
“He knew from the day he built it that it was temporary,” Arnold said. “Over my lifetime the lake became eutrophic. The headwaters had cattle, corn and bean farms. This created a lot of topsoil loss which came into the lake. This was happening slowly and in the last 10 years the concrete spillway started having structural cracks.” Despite this knowledge no one could predict what the lake’s lifespan would be or the complications it might cause when it's time was up.
“You’d come here in August and the lake was covered with moss. Thirty years before that, it was crystal clear, and you could swim wherever you wanted. So, we saw it dying,” said Arnold.
When Arnold and his siblings inherited the farm and the memories in 1988, they also inherited the inevitable problem of the aging lake and structure that would threaten their ability to keep it.
The aging lake, dam and spillway revealed algae and structural cracks over the years. (Photo: Water & Land Solutions)
Several inspections by the Ohio Division of Natural Resources, Dam Safety Division resulted in a report requiring fixes to bring the lake and dam up to current regulations.
“Some of the problems were simple, like cutting brush and keeping cattails down. But it also had big problems like cracks in the cement spillway and rodent damage on the dam. It was earthen, so animals burrowing in, like muskrats, could, in theory, create a hole and then the water starts coming out,” Arnold said.
There was also concern of the dam having the unlikely, but possible scenario of breaching with potential flooding, environmental destruction, property damage or even life-threatening risks to people downstream. This exposed the family legally, but the price tag to fix it totaled more than a million dollars which was far out of reach.
Old photos of several generations of Arnold’s family enjoying the lake at the family farm. (Photo: Anietra Hamper)
“We're approaching 100 years of this farm being in our family. I didn't want to be the generation that caused that to go, but we had real problems. We had high expenses and putting new concrete in the dam or fixing it was beyond our capability financially,” said Arnold.
With the prospect of losing his grandfather’s life passion and the generations of family memories created there, Arnold stumbled on something called mitigation banking. It’s a concept to balance natural resources with a solution that most people have never heard of or know of its impacts that extend beyond just environmental preservation.
For families like Arnold’s, mitigation banking was an option to evolve into a modern-day environmental climate while securing the farm for the next generations.
Dave Arnold’s family utilized mitigation banking as a way to save their family farm and restore the land and streams to their original state. (Photo: Water & Land Solutions)
What is Mitigation Banking?
Mitigation banking is one of three options of compensatory mitigation. It’s designed to offset ecological impact from development with equal restoration elsewhere utilizing a system of credits and debits so there is no net environmental loss. For example, if a company embarks on a development project that will negatively impact streams or wetlands, it can buy credits from a mitigation bank as an offset for its permitted project.
In instances where a mitigation bank doesn’t exist or does not have available credits the second option is in-lieu fee program (ILFP) advance credits. ILFP pools credits over a period until enough are sold to construct a project. The third compensatory mitigation option is called permittee responsible mitigation.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the entity that reviews applications for development and oversees mitigation projects. The agency says the first step in mitigation is to avoid streams and wetlands altogether, so it works with applicants to redesign projects accordingly. If avoidance is not possible, the next option is compensatory mitigation for which the USACE manages the release of funding credits over time.
“We'll have a specific performance measure that they will need to meet,” said Justin Elkins, Huntington District, Regulatory Division, Mitigation Subject Matter Expert. “If they're meeting those performance measures, we'll release credits.”
The concept of compensatory mitigation began in the 1990s. With years of research and input from government and private entity stakeholders, a Mitigation Rule enacted 2008 established the regulations used for executing authorized mitigation projects.
After a mitigation projects is completed the USACE oversees it in perpetuity to ensure long-term protection for the site.
Dave Arnold walks his property during construction of the steam and bank restoration. (Photo: Anietra Hamper)
Mitigation Banking in Practice
While the concept of mitigation banking sounds simple, putting it into practice is quite complex. Dave Arnold enlisted the help of geomorphologist Josh White of Water & Land Solutions, a company that develops commercial compensatory mitigation banks.
“It wasn’t economically not feasible for Dave to fix the dam. Even just fixing the spillway wasn't going to be enough to have habitat, remove the algal blooms and remove some of the invasive species that were starting to grow within there. Financially this helped because we took out the dam, but we also paid them for the environmental covenant to go around their property,” said Josh White, Vice President of Mitigation Services for Water & Land Solutions.
Water & Land Solutions is an ecosystem restoration firm that is focused on conservation. It partners with landowners to return or improve stream and wetland ecological functions through restoration using environmental credits that can then be used to offset future economic growth impacts. The company manages the project from start to finish and serves as a liaison between the landowner and the USACE to conduct geomorphic surveys, oversee legal agreements, permitting, assessments and working with contractors.
Construction for a multi-year land and stream restoration at Arnold’s family farm. (Photo: Water & Land Solutions)
An All-in Commitment
Restoring nature is a slow and intricate process. The end goal for the Arnold family farm was to return it to the way it was 200 years ago. Restoration plans called for replacing the lake with 10,000 feet of free-flowing streams, restoring the valley that existed previously, developing 10 additional acres of reforestation and placing a 34-acre environmental covenant around the work.
Implementing the Water & Land Solutions concept for the farm into real-life development required intricate execution and expertise every step of the way.
First, the lake was dewatered and thousands of fish were relocated to a nearby lake. What was left of the lake further revealed its desolate state.
The bottom of the lake after dewatering and before land restoration. (Photo: Water & Land Solutions)
“Once we took some of the water down Dave thought that there were going to be more pockets of bluegill habitat or bass habitat. There was no structure there,” White said.
Next, the 23-foot-tall dam and spillway were removed and then it was time to begin the multi-year process of developing the meandering streams and supporting banks.
“Everything had to be restored within a couple inches, whether it was adding logs, gravel, or creating the stream bed, it all had to be perfect. They brought in a series of heavy equipment, about 15 different pieces of equipment, mostly big excavators, dump trucks and bulldozers,” Arnold said.
15,000 native trees are planted on Arnold’s family farm during the restoration process. (Photo: Dave Arnold)
The next step in the process involved restoring native vegetation and 15,000 trees into the landscape while removing non-native trees.
“I emphasized that the native trees should be wildlife enhancing trees like acorn, dogwood, hawthorn, beech and things like that,” said Arnold. With the restoration completed, the project moves into a monitoring period for five-to-10 years.
Before and after construction aerials of Arnold’s family farm where free-flowing streams replaced the 22-acre lake. (Photo: Water & Land Solutions)
A Win-Win Solution
Mitigation banking is a win-win solution for landowners, developers, mitigation bankers and ultimately the environment.
The mitigation banking process that connects government agencies like the USACE, private entities like Water & Land Solutions, corporations interested in development and landowners like Dave Arnold is working. Everybody has something to gain with a vested interest in a common goal to balance environmental protection with economic progress.
The USACE says this solution that leverages the private sector helps streamline the permitting processes and results in more efficient compliance.
“These are sponsors who this is their entire business model, and their entire career is dedicated to restoring resources. We feel like the ecological outcomes are better for us and our program as well as the permitees that use these resources,” said Wes Barnett, USACE Huntington District, Regulatory Division, Ohio Mitigation Program Manager.
Other benefits coming out of this multi-stakeholder solution include tapping into more detailed restoration planning and scientific expertise.
“This is truly a win-win,” said Arnold. “It is a win-win for our family. It's a win-win for one of the corporate entities that will be able to take advantage of this, and it's a win-win for the state of Ohio.”
The stream restoration in-progress at Arnold’s family farm. (Photo: Anietra Hamper)
With mitigation banking being such an impactful option for landowners like Arnold, why don’t more people know about it?
“Unless the average person has a reason to come to the Corps for a permitting need, they're not really going to be totally aware of one of our programs and to the details about mitigation,” said Michael Hatten, USACE Huntington District, Regulatory Division Chief.
While Arnold’s family stumbled on this solution, sometimes companies like Water & Land Solutions approach landowners about leveraging mitigation banking as an opportunity.
“We look all over maps and find some landowners, whereas some landowners come to us,” said White. “Sometimes we approach farmers that their land is frequently flooded and they're not making any money off it. We can provide them money for that kind of environmental covenant or conservation easement adjacent to a stream.”
Not everyone is a candidate for compensatory mitigation but just knowing the option exists opens the door to one more solution for developers and landowners that is also a benefit for environmental protection.
Aerial view of the family farm seven months after restoration with 10,000 feet of free-flowing streams. (Photo: Water & Land Solutions)
Land With A New Vision
As Dave Arnold walks the bankside of the newly formed free-flowing streams on the property, he settles into a new vision for the farm. For sure the pangs of nostalgia hit whenever he drives down the farm’s entrance seeing the empty space of the lake’s former glory, but as with every life evolution the sadness of seeing it this way also comes with the promise of something new.
“We took something that was artificial, as much as I loved it and it was one of the most important things in my life, but we took something that was not right and turned it back to what it was. So, there's a good feeling from a conservation standpoint,” Arnold said.
As the natural environment redevelops on the farm there’s already a measurable ripple effect on the plants and wildlife. The stream habitats are stabilizing and aiding the terrestrial habitats for animals like deer, turkey and raccoons that rely on the water source. Recent surveys show that the amphibian count is high and there’s more birds, bugs and wildlife that were never there before.
One of the many old family photographs that Dave Arnold holds onto with memories of enjoying the lake and farm. (Photo: Dave Arnold)
When Arnold is asked about how he feels when looking at the restoration’s progress, there’s a long pause before he can answer. Change is difficult, but as a lifelong outdoors enthusiast and conservationist, Arnold knows that this environmental restoration was the right thing to do.
“I think if Gramps can look down right now, I think he's smiling. I think he's saying, ‘nice job.’ It's different, but a lot of times things that are different are good.”
The farmland being restored to what it was 200 years ago ushers in new ways for Arnold’s family to enjoy outdoor experiences and create new memories for generations to come.